


Between the Lines

by Mordaunt



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-04-24 22:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14364717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mordaunt/pseuds/Mordaunt
Summary: As the series unfolds, different voices emerge, telling their own versions of the story and revealing their secrets...between the lines....





	1. Games we Play

**(Based on Season 1, ep. 2 "Sleight of Hand" with elements from ep. 1)**

 

It is a familiar gaze.

That look he gives me when he needs me to do his dirty work but does not trust me. Truth be told, I would not trust me either. He is a perceptive man and I admire him for his intuition. He knows his limits with me and I know how far I can provoke him. He enjoys being provoked.

“Did you hear all that?” he asks as I enter his study.

Of course, I have heard. I saw the two Musketeers arriving in the courtyard from my window. De Treville, with his firm, disciplined, stride hiding a concerned frown under his large feathered hat. The second Musketeer looked up towards my window. I sheltered myself from his gaze. I know him well and he knows me. His gaze makes me shudder. It is cold and distant. I recall quite a different gaze, warm and playful. It was five years ago. We were both young then. Now, as I see him approach next to his Captain, he is a different man. I tried to kill him once. I am glad I failed. It was too subtle, and I want him to know that I am his executioner. As he has been mine.

Their meeting with His Eminence was brief. They kept repeating a name. “Vadim,” de Treville’s voice sounded vexed and worried, “what does he want with all this gunpowder and where is it?”

Vadim. I knew him in another life: arrogant, pretentious, trying to maintain a hard-earned status as the best among Saracen’s troop of pickpockets. He had a sick fascination with fire and burnings. Some of the girls that Mother brought to Paris along with me from Uzés thought his pox-marked face handsome and his cockiness a sign of some obscure nobility. I remember one of those girls: plain, fair-haired, with scared pale blue eyes. What was her name? Suzette…! Poor Suzette! Her maidenhead sold for less than two sous after several auctions, and Mother used her as a scullery maid in the end. “One day Vadim will take me away and we shall live like a lord and lady,” she used to say, her hands raw from the ash and freezing water.

I thought Vadim a loathsome lecher, if I ever thought of him at all. I had extinguished his hard-earned reputation in a matter of days and I was not even one of Saracen’s regulars. I was twelve. Vadim was much older. He looked ancient to me. I cared little for that arrogant fool. Then, one night he cornered me at a stinking alley, a knife under my ribs, his foul tongue shoved into my mouth, his sweaty hands under my skirts. It was the first time I had tasted a man and he reeked of stale sour wine. “I will make a woman out of you, green-eyed bitch,” he slobbered. He did not. I knew exactly where to kick him. He whimpered like the pitiful dog he was, and then spouted out all kinds of empty threats. By that time his knife was in my hands and I knew how to use it.

I had forgotten all about him and our unfinished business until this moment. Now he seems to have been resurrected too and my score with him is not yet settled.

“I heard most of what was said, Your Eminence.”

I decide not to reveal anything. My old score with Vadim is no one’s business. Besides, he is irrelevant. What matters now is to prove my loyalty. What matters now is to take revenge where it is important. As fate would have it, the key to both crossed my way. I do not believe in fate nor trust it one bit, but when the opportunity affords itself I seize it.

His name is d' Artagnan.

Truth be told, the boy is a bit unrefined. His accent leaves little doubt as to his Gascon heritage. There was a glow in his eyes the night I first met him at the inn called The Jolly Miller(1), half drunk and provoking a duel with Mendoza. His eyes reminded me of another pair of eyes. Eyes that had looked at no one else but me once. There was something in the Gascon’s manner too and in his demeanor that raised the specter of the man who has marked me more than any other. The man who now calls himself Athos. The Musketeer who must die by my hand alone. I thought I should attempt a dry run with his younger look-alike. See if the similarity is more than skin deep. The Gascon proved a worthy opponent. He was quite an eager lover. Now he is a Musketeer cadet. Now my nemesis calls him a comrade in arms. So this could be fate after all.

“D’ Artagnan is gifted, I laid a trap for him and he managed to survive. He is key to your plans, Your Eminence. We should make him an ally.”

His Eminence’s dark eyes are small and calculating. You know that even when engaged in the most mundane conversation his mind plots ceaselessly behind those eyes. They look at me now and I know he is measuring my advice against his lingering doubts about my loyalty, and the news he has just received about the Gascon. He volunteered to go to jail under the false pretense of illegal dueling so that he would infiltrate Vadim’s gang. Vadim was held at the Châtelet for petty theft. It appears that the two of them escaped in some foolhardy attempt, which somehow involved the Queen and the Musketeer Aramis. Athos’ otherwise colorless voice as he reported these events, intimated concern for the young cadet. There was another hue in his voice that surprised me, I admit. Affection. It recalled moments I thought I had forgotten. Moments I do not care to remember. Moments that involved Thomas, his brother…

“You left that young Gascon at an inn with Mendoza’s corpse and a bloody knife in his hands. I doubt he will look upon you favorably, Madame,” the Cardinal retorts.

This is a provocation. I know because His Eminence’s busy eyes now linger on the bouquet of forget-me nots I hold, that matches the color of my dress. I know he invites me to play and I indulge him, first bringing the bouquet to my lips and then slowly touching the neckline of my dress, where he is inclined to look. I know that I have his undivided attention. I know the next moves are mine and that they are crucial.

“Oh, d’ Artagnan,” I use the fake voice I call “innocent” as I move behind the desk where His Eminence sits. “Forgive me d’ Artagnan. Mendoza attacked me and I defended myself. I panicked. I never meant to hurt you…” I sit now in the old man’s lap tentatively caressing his pale cheek with the tender petals of the small purple flowers. For a moment he appears mesmerized. For a moment I know I am in charge of his game. It is just a moment however. He is quite himself almost immediately, smiling a cunning, satisfied, smile.

I assume my real voice now that the play-acting is over. “I learned everything that matters from Your Eminence, these past five years. How can you doubt me? I have had the greatest teacher.” He hates flattery and lies but this is a fact.

“Get me Vadim, Madame,” he demands. This must be fate, indeed.

“Of course, Your Eminence.” I shrug it off as if it is the simplest thing in the world.

It is.

He smiles again, satisfied, and bows his head as I motion to leave from the side door that leads to my apartments. “Is this bouquet for me?” he asks.

He told me once, that the best flattery demands a touch of insolence. That the best game is the one you play in plain sight. Everything else is just vulgar. A sleight of hand for cheap street tricksters like Saracen and Vadim. “We play a different game here, my dear,” he advised.

“No, the flowers are not for you,” I say, closing the door behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The Jolly Miller is the inn where d' Artagnan stops on his way to Paris in Dumas. That is where he encounters Rochefort and sees Milady for the first time. The BBC series does not provide a name for the inn where Milady meets d' Artagnan so I use the Dumas name.


	2. Forget Me Not

_**Based on Season 1, ep. 3 "Commodities"** _

 

“You cannot erase the past,” he had said when he first engaged me in his service five years ago. “The past is a lesson. The past is power, your power. Use it.” I did not contradict him. Any man in his position would have said the same. I disagree, of course.

Some pasts must be rooted out. Pretending to forget them is an exercise in futility. They can return any minute, induced by the simplest thing: a movement, the hue of someone’s voice, a distant sound of footsteps, or a faint fragrance in the air. There is little power in such recollections, only weakness and unnecessary attachments.

The past I want to erase is deeply marked on my skin. I often cover it with a ribbon, or a scarf, and other times with strings of pearls. I cannot pretend it is not there although sometimes, lately, I forget it. Can I erase such a past, I wonder? I do not think it gives me any power. It makes me eager for revenge. But that is not the same.

I remember the executioner’s noose; the harsh texture of the rope scraping my neck. Its grip. I had seen people hanged before. Many cried, others prayed, some looked as if in a trance. I assumed they would recount their sins to God and think of loved ones. My father was hanged by soldiers and Musketeers defending the Catholic faith. But he had no time to speak and I was too terrified to look into his eyes. My father was a good man.

Facing the noose under the oak tree across our house with its ancient walls barely visible in the morning mist, my mind seemed to have no room for lofty thoughts. I am not a good woman.

How awkward I would look, I thought, how strange, hanging like a lifeless doll in this white dress. I was glad to be hanged in the white dress with the small pearl buttons. It had a most flattering cut. Strange to think of such silly things in the end, I remember telling myself, but that is why I have “a murderous disposition and deserve to be executed.” These were the words he penned and signed on my death sentence, my husband.

I saw him riding on his horse. I saw him riding away. He did not wait until the end. I held a small bouquet of forget-me-nots in my hand. I foolishly imagined that I might touch his heart somehow. Of course, by then I knew too well that his heart had remained immune throughout everything. It was only his desire and his mind I had ever managed to stir. He never saw the flowers. He was not there. It was for the best.

Five years now, I have observed him from a distance. He has exchanged his name for another, just as I have. And just like me, he has offered himself for hire: same master only different methods, less effective. He has yet to discover the futility of pretending to have forgotten. I hear it is wine that allows him to deceive himself. There is no power in that. Sometimes I hope he drinks himself to death, although that would be too easy. Other times, I ask myself why he lingers so. Perhaps self-pity makes him feel unique, important, in some way. Perhaps it is comforting. Perhaps it is what noblemen of his rank are supposed to do.

I realized too late, that all of us, Thomas, Catherine, his mother, his father, me, were just extensions of himself. We existed so that he could be the great man everyone expected him to be. We all betrayed him in some fashion. He blames himself for being betrayed but cares little for the rest of us. I realized too late, that this was not love. I realized too late, that it was all a terrible mistake. And now someone needs to put an end to it. Someone needs to erase it. He seems unwilling, so it will be me. All it takes is a two-hour ride west of Paris and lighting a fire.

“Do you have any need of me, your Eminence, for I have certain personal matters to attend to,” I ask trying to sound as dispassionate as possible. I do not know what Richelieu knows. I assume he knows everything.

“My dear, I caution you never to let personal matters cloud your judgment,” he replies as he gives me permission to leave with his hand.

“Of course, Your Eminence,” I agree.

I always agree.


	3. My Guilty Secret

_**Based on Season 1 ep. 4 "The Good Soldier"** _

 

The man looked battered. When they brought him through the door he was wearing rags and he reeked. His hair was long, matted, and unkempt under an old leather hat twice the size of his head. He was clearly trying to hide his face.

“He is a cabinet maker,” Aramis declared with confidence. He is a good liar in general, the Chevalier, I admit. But this time I could tell he was lying through his teeth. Even if that poor wretch had looked less like a beggar and more like any sort of craftsman or man of trade, the look in Aramis’ eyes was revealing enough. It was the same look that Nicolas gave me when he was five and I caught him hiding an old lame stray dog under his bed. “Don’t worry sister,” he had lisped trying to imitate father’s stern tone, “he is here to chase the rats in the cellar.” The look in d’ Artagnan’s eyes was even more revealing; or, rather the fact that he was staring at his boots, not even daring to look at me.

I understand there are secrets they cannot share. I understand it is the nature of what they do. Still they were in my husband’s house, of all places, asking for yet another favor. Could this poor wretch stay for a few days? And something else was amiss. Where were Porthos and Athos? Why were these man’s hands tied with a rope and concealed carefully under his dirty cloak although Aramis clearly called him a friend?

I am not sure what drives me to agree to their odd requests. I find all kinds of excuses for my recklessness: My husband needs the money. It is good to keep friends with the Musketeers for lodgers and protection and for Captain de Treville’s patronage. I know of course that these are all excuses.

“If you vouch for him he can stay,” I feigned indifference, as if I believed their obvious lies about this man they called Marsac. As if I could not see the state this man was in, trembling and almost unable to stand either from want of wine or food or both. What drives me to get myself involved once again? I wondered but just for a second.

“Thank you,” he said in his warm, melodious, Gascon voice. “I fear we bring you only trouble, Madame.”

I turned my back pretending to gather the fabrics I was working on. When he stands so near me my heart flutters in a manner most pleasant and embarrassing. I fear he can hear it. I am sure he can see me blush for my silly face is too pale and always betrays my feelings. Can I tell him how he has changed my life since he arrived in this house, half faint with a large bruise on his chest and another on his head determined to provoke a duel with three of most dangerous Musketeers in France? “My name is d’Artagnan” he had said as stood up to leave, his step sill unsteady, “think of me with kindness, Madame if you think of me at all.” I have thought of little else since.

Can I tell him how I love the sense of danger and excitement he brings in this house every day? How that night he asked me to help him save Athos changed my life forever? Or how often since that night I wish I could ride along with him dressed in a Musketeer uniform, pistols and a sword around my waist, involved in one of their missions? I fear I can tell him none of these things. I fear of what he might think of me. I am sure I am not half as noble or witty or daring as the ladies he meets at court daily. Maybe some of them take part in those adventures that I can only dream of as I go about my daily chores in this small kitchen.

So I will take all I can for now. And perhaps, one day, at the right moment, I can ask him to teach me how to use a pistol and a sword….


	4. Never Look Back

**Based on Season 1-ep. 5 "Homecoming"**  


_By then I was used to silence._  
_Though something stretched between us_  
_like a whisper, like a rope:_  
_my former name,_  
_drawn tight._  
_You had your old leash_  
_with you, love you might call it,_  
_and your flesh voice._

_(Margaret Atwood, Orpheus 1)_

"Watch where you lay your eyes, Porthos." I do not turn my back nor hasten to cover myself. I want him to look.  


I want him to see me as I am now, not the tearful girl who begged him to stay. "I am done here, Flea. I am leaving. I shall never look back," he said. He showed me a leather pauldron marked with the sign of the fleur-de-lis on his arm. "This is who I want to be. This is who I will be. This is my destiny. Come with me. There is a whole world out there…"

I wept. "Come where? What is there for me outside this court?" I wept, thinking of all the nights that would come without his soft breath as he slept beside me, his dark curly hair wrapped around my fingers, the feeling of his warm skin against mine. It was all I had ever known.

His embrace was my first memory. I must have been very little. It was raining. Someone had kicked me against a wall: "shod off you stinking beggar." I still remember being terrified; the pain in my back and my head as it hit the stones, my scraped hands and knees. I remember being wet and cold. And then, a sweet voice and a tall boy. "Are you alright, little girl?" He had lifted me up in his arms, "don't worry little girl, everything will be fine. My name is Porthos," he had said with a smile. The most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I had no name. Or maybe I did but I do not remember it. "I shall call you Flea little one," he had whispered and I fell asleep right there in his arms.

I wept the day he left me behind to pursue the destiny marked by the leather fleur-de-lis. I wept for many days after. And when I had no more tears, I decided that like him I would never look back. There was nothing for me outside this court. Whatever there was I hated it all the more for it had robbed me of the only person who mattered.

 

Lazare had always been second. Second to Porthos, that is; in strength, intelligence, and nobility of spirit. It must be difficult to live in the shadow of a man like that. To have to submit to his unrivaled superiority. It seemed to me, that his admiration of Porthos overpowered any sense of resentment and envy. Lazare too felt abandoned at first. He refused to utter Porthos' name. "He is dead to me now," he declared. He disappeared for a while in the same world outside the court with a gang that called themselves "les fantômes." Their exploits became legendary. One day, he walked up to me, a gold chain around his neck, his voice commanding, serious, and assertive. "I shall rule here now, Flea" he said. "This world is mine." He offered me his hand and I took it with no hesitation. Neither of us ever looked back.

They called him Charon by that time. He told me that this was the name of an ancient king who ruled the underworld (1). He calls me his queen. I care little for all that. He is affectionate and fair. Little else has changed for us here since he declared himself our king. But this is all the life we know. We are content. I am content.

 

Why did he have to return? Tall, majestic in his Musketeer uniform, with his deep voice now infused with an idiom foreign to my ears. He speaks the language of another court. He speaks the language of another world. I find myself unable to resist the beauty of his words and the sound of his voice. I find myself unable to resist inviting him to my bed; I have to know if it would feel the same.

"There is another world out there, Flea," he insists, sitting up on the bed and smiling. "You'd be good in it. You are the most intelligent woman I know…"

My heart sinks a little. "Intelligent" might have sufficed for the weeping girl he left behind. If I were still that girl I would follow him right now, without a moment's hesitation. If I were still that girl I would follow him anywhere. This man who speaks a language so foreign to my ears. This man who feels so familiar and yet so distant. But I am no longer that girl. I too have left her behind just as he did. Both he and I agree on one thing now. We will never look back.

"Then what am I doing here with you?" I interrupt him, as I gather my clothes and step out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Charon is the ferryman to the underworld. However, in folklore and oral traditions (including popular songs) beginning in medieval times, Charon is conflated with Hades (mythical king of the underworld). It would be unlikely for either Lazare (Charon) or Flea to have read Virgil and know Greek/Roman mythology. It is more likely that they are familiar with oral traditions and songs performed in the streets and taverns. Thus the “confusion.”


	5. Queen Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As with many of these chapters so far, this chapter too is connected with people and events that will be described by other voices in later chapters. Louis will describe some part of this. The most significant narrators of what is described in this chapter however will be Louis in a later chapter and Athos and Milady, in the story “Past Forgotten Past Remembered.”

  * **Based on S1. Ep. 6, "Exiles"**



(See, also note 1)

He calls me old woman. He thinks that I shall become defensive and reveal some weakness, some part of my scheme. I am insulted, naturally. Old is not just crude, it is hypocritical coming from the lips of one who looks almost a corpse. And I am no woman. I am a Queen.

 

I am _the_  Queen.

 

His words sting but I have heard far worse. De Balzac, that slut my husband kept as mistress used to call me “the fat banker’s daughter.” The King, my husband, would let her insult me at court daily. “That fat Italian cow,” he would chime in when he was drunk and I was pregnant. I was constantly pregnant. I bore him six children. Seven if you count Philippe. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I was married to a divorced man two times my age and gave him heirs. He owed my father millions that he could never repay. My father exchanged the debt for the daughter he was trying to get rid of. It was the perfect arrangement for all. Except for me. But the day finally came when I was crowned queen. And the next day the old drunken French oaf, my husband, was killed in a crowded street and I became Regent. De Balzac has never been back in France since. She will rot in exile.

The dauphin was little then. I never felt much for the boy except relief when he was born right after his twin brother, Philippe. I was terrified when I saw Philippe: his small head so disfigured; barely able to cry. I could only think of the ridicule I would have to endure by de Balzac and her allies at court. How my husband would declare that “the stupid Italian cow can do nothing right.” But then Louis came and I was saved. Philippe was immediately removed out of sight. As if he never existed. The "unwanted child." It is incredible how efficient such machinations can be.

I felt little for Louis although I tried. I prayed that I would be more loving. I asked forgiveness for failing to see in this child anything but my husband’s cold eyes and his cruelty. As Louis grew it became harder even to like him: he was a weak boy, petulant, and overindulged. What a sad King he would make I thought. And then I realized, it did not have to be so. I failed the first time around.

 

But now fate affords me a second chance.

This time I have Henri. And Louis, now a man, is as petulant and weak as ever and has no heirs. I pity his young Spanish wife. She sounds resigned when it comes to any offspring with my son. I do not blame her. If she were my daughter I would have urged her to find a lover. Perhaps one among her husband’s Musketeers. I know I have indulged myself thus in recent years. Vincent is a brute but an exceptional lover.

Now this old fool in the Cardinal’s cassock thinks he can force me to reveal myself with his toothless insults. He should know me better. I know him well. I remember how he ingratiated himself to me at first and then tried to seduce me but failed. I wanted nothing to do with such a sickly, deceitful, fox. As I expected, he betrayed me, siding with de Luynes and my own son, Louis, to murder my beloved Concini and behead my sweet Leonora. Does he expect I have forgotten their horrible deaths? My son sure seems to think I have. Another fool.

 

“I always liked you Armand,” I lie, walking up to him, “I liked you even when you opposed me. We should be allies you and I.” He will not be deceived of course, but I delight in seeing him unnerved even if it is just for a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) To clarify some of the things Marie alludes to in this chapter: Marie de Medici was the second wife of Henri IV of France. His first marriage to Margaret of Valois (Queen Margot) had been annulled. Marie was 25 years old when she married 47 year old Henry who had a very long line of mistresses. Henry had no children with his first wife, Margaret, who also had no children with her many lovers. He chose Marie because he owed her father money that he could not repay. The marriage produced six children (the seventh, twin of the Dauphin, Philippe, featured in this episode is fictional) but was an unhappy one. Marie feuded in public with Henry's many mistresses in language that shocked the court and was treated accordingly. She mostly feuded with Henry's official mistress Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil. Henry had promised to marry her after the death of his former lover Gabrielle d Estrées. Henry used Marie solely for breeding purposes. She was not crowned queen until May 13, 1610. *A day later* Henry was assassinated in his carriage while stuck in a crowded street. Marie became regent and immediately banished Henry's official mistress from court. As regent she was influenced by Leonora Dori and her unscrupulous husband Concino Concini. Armand Jean du Plessis (later Cardinal Richelieu) was one of her primary allies. The duke de Luynes became the favorite of her son Louis XIII. Together Louis (now in his majority) and de Luynes staged a coup overturning his mother, and executed Leonora and Concini. Marie was exiled. Through the mediation of Richelieu she was reconciled with her son by 1621. After the death of de Luynes, Richelieu rose to prominence as the new favorite. Marie attempted to displace him staging a coup and for one day ("Day of the Dupes") in Nov. 1630 she appeared to have succeeded. However, Richelieu triumphed and Marie was exiled. The series builds on this last part of Marie's history (it is a retelling of the Day of the Dupes, with the addition of a fictional twin brother, ala Man in the Iron Mask.)


	6. Sure Bet

**Based on Season 1, Ep.7 "A Rebellious Woman"**

 

He stands in the rain. “Look back at me,” he thinks. He knows it is absurd but he still strikes this foolish bet with himself. “If she looks back I will know it was all true.” It has been years since he last attempted such a bet. Back when he was innocent; back when he naively believed in fate.  Now he is unsure again and it disturbs him deeply. Can things change in a matter of days? In a matter of hours?

 

He was certain she was deceitful. He was absolutely certain. From that first bold kiss. But then…

 

…then she wept when she saw the girl’s body on the cold slab at the morgue. “I feel sadness, Monsieur, but no guilt,” she protested. He prodded her further. He was sure there would be something in the hue of her voice or some glimmer in her eyes. The slightest change, confirming her deceit. He was confident he would see it immediately. He always praised himself for his ability to do so. Still, he could not. When the girls were discovered hidden in a room of her house he felt vindicated. Things fell into place again. She had lied after all. He was not mistaken.

“You are too hard on her,” Aramis interjected “she was protecting her girls not deceiving you.” Aramis is always soft on her kind. He tried to dismiss his friend’s words, but he found it impossible. They lingered, raising an uncomfortable sense of uncertainty. Aramis is not some naïve, wide-eyed boy. Aramis is one of the most intuitive and discriminating men when it comes to evaluating humanity. He pushed all doubt at the back of his mind but the sting of Aramis’ words remained.

 ---

A familiar voice echoed in the vastness of the hall where the trial took place. It resonated in his mind, in his entire being. It raised feelings buried deeply. Feelings that were resurrected that dreadful night when she held him in her arms, a dagger in her hands that she refused to use although he begged her. That night, not long ago, when she kissed him again and again while their past dissolved into ashes around them. 

In the vastness of that hall, her voice raised hope first. And then the deepest of despair. He could only see her back wrapped in an exquisite cloak, her dark long curls flowing to her waist. Madame de la Chappelle, the Cardinal had called her. She lied, in that clear voice of hers. She lied again and again. And then he knew he had been wrong all along. He realized he was just part of a scheme. That he had been siding against the victim. That he had been played.

 ---

 

Now he stands in the rain, looking back at the man he was just a few hours ago. He thinks of his arrogant, conceited, certainty. 

 

“I could have loved a man like you,” she says and for a brief moment he imagines a world where this could be possible. It is a crushing feeling: hope. He is terrified.

 

“It is a pity then, that neither of us is the marrying kind,” he manages to say. He helps her on the gig. “If she looks back at me,” he tells himself, “then it was all true. If she looks back, then I was wrong all along.”

 

The gig moves slowly along the muddy road through the forest. She turns.


	7. Loyalty

**Based on Season 1, ep. 8 "The Challenge"**

 

I observe him from the window of my carriage as he traverses the small square on his way to his Garrison, a knapsack thrown over his shoulder, now marked with the Musketeer pauldron. He walks in wide strides, proudly displaying his new, prized, affiliation. He fought valiantly to achieve it. I am not often impressed.

 

I am not often confounded either. Labarge a Red Guard? I have heard the rumors about the man just like everyone else in Paris. Brutal, a rapist, and a thug who terrorized Gascony. No subtle politics or loyalties, just vulgar greed and raw violence. Who would have sought an alliance with that monster, especially if they were vying for the King’s good favor? Labarge was despised by everyone. The King, the Queen, the entire court, the people, the Musketeers, the Red Guards. Rarely do all of them agree in anything. They all agreed in despising Labarge.

 

I thought we were playing a different game. Not a “slight of hand,” as he had called it condescendingly, but a game of strategy.  I thought we were different. I thought he was different. Now he resorts to enlisting Labarge as his champion and that fool Bonacieux to spy on me. How is he different I wonder, from low life crooks like Saracen who run their gangs and brothels from the back alleys around the Court of Miracles?

 

Now he insists he does not trust me. I have provided all he demanded of me, and more. I discovered Ninon’s students, I got her pronounced a witch, I provided him with her precious admission of guilt, which ensured him the de Larroque fortune he so craved; my misgivings aside, for I had many. The de Larroque fortune made no difference to the King. His personal friendship with the family and the lady were always far more significant. It was clear even at her trial. What was to be gained by this misguided plot? In this, even the Queen was the King’s ally. I understand why. Ninon is a remarkable woman. A worthy adversary too. For in a way she was, and still is, my adversary.

 

Now he claims he is suspicious of my independence. Clearly the fact that Athos recognized me at the trial upset him more than he revealed at the time.  I have secrets he has not managed to penetrate. I have a life he had not imagined anyone like me might have enjoyed. “Contessa de la Fere,” he mocked me after the competition at the Louvre. He sounded hurt and defeated. I have never seen that side of him.

 

I should have been terrified but I am not. I have been here before. Even the best men make fickle allies. I am better off working alone. By the time he tried to threaten me, hiding behind a tree at the Louvre gardens, like a bitter, rejected, lover, I was already certain of what needed to be done. Whether or not he agrees with me is irrelevant now, although his name is still powerful enough to ensure that my plan advances faster. I made sure the Musketeers know exactly who I work for. Athos was a convenient messenger. 

 

Once, not long ago, I thought I would extinguish the past by erasing everything associated with it, especially the man at the center of it all. Now that I have encountered him, in this new life, I am no longer certain. For what does it signify to kill a man who wagers his life every single day? A man who still carries my locket around his neck as a reminder of a crime, not of love? Perhaps the way to extinguish the past is to let it fizzle in obscurity. Perhaps the best revenge is to be found in the present. In those who are now important to him.

 

I signal my coachman to stop the carriage and I open the door. The Gascon stops. He does not look surprised.

 

“May I offer you a lift, Chevalier?”

 

“Not this time,” he resists. But I see the glimmer of temptation in his bright chestnut eyes.

“Perhaps another time.”


	8. All That Grace

**Based on Season 1, ep. 9 "Knight Takes Queen"**

_Mon ame voulait etre_  
_Libre de passion,_  
_Mais l'amour s'est fait maitre_  
_De mes affections_  
_Et a mis sous sa loi_  
_Et mon coeur et ma foi. (1)_

Belle qui tiens ma vie – Beauty who holds my life  
Orchésographie, published in 1589, Thoinot Arbeau (anagrammatic pseudonym of Jehan Tabourot)

 

Is it too late, I wonder? Too late to be guarded and careful? As I must be. As I was raised: quiet and dignified. Watching from a silent distance as life whirls around me; while I am being dressed and decked in jewelry, as they serve my meals, pour my wine, read me poetry, bow in reverence when I pass… Is it too late to return to that? I felt his arms around me, his hands holding me as we rode together. I felt his breath caressing my hair. I saw him standing shirtless in the middle of a river, a playful smile lighting up his face. Is it too late?

 

What could have possessed me to act the way I did? Perhaps it was the way he whispered “you are safe! look at me!” while still shielding me from the bullets with his body. Perhaps it was the dark coals of his eyes. Perhaps it was feeling his breath for the first time. He took my breath away.

 

This man.

 

I know well what possessed me. What possesses me still. I knew the moment I saw him again, standing next to his comrade, the Musketeer named Porthos, in the hall outside my apartments. I invited him there to make sure. I knew then, as I know now, that it was already too late for me. He was holding his feathered hat under his arm, tall and graceful, his dark hair framing his handsome features. I could still see the red scratch behind his ear, left by the bullet he took while protecting me. I touched his forbidden skin and he shuddered.

 

“Are you hurt?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck fastening the cross I gave him for his bravery and courage. This must be what it is like, I thought. To hold this man.

 

It was only then I realized my secluded life was a blessing. In my silent distance I could listen to everyone else talking. I could learn. “He is a libertine,” they declared, “an infamous womanizer.”

“But a great lover,” they would add quietly.

 

Could I have been so mistaken? For it is something sincere, affectionate, and tender that I see in his eyes. I felt betrayed although I knew it was ridiculous. Then I saw my cross around another woman’s neck. I was angry I had permitted myself that momentary indulgence. Such foolish recklessness, I thought, must end. But it did not.

 

I spy on him now through the half-closed door. He sits on a bench in the candle-lit hall outside my room. The air is stuffy although all the windows are open. It is a hot summer night. Somewhere outside these walls faceless assassins are hammering on wood, digging, and moving rocks, getting closer. I hear him sigh. He buries his head in his hands, desponded and desperate. I know he weeps for another. I know he weeps for a life that was not meant for him. I know exactly how this feels.

I stand and walk into the hall.

I know what to say.

I know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) My soul wanted to be  
> Free of passion,  
> But love became master  
> Of my affections  
> And put under its law  
> My heart and my faith.


	9. Elegy

**Based on S1.ep10 "Musketeers don't die easily"**

  
  


_Love, if you burn too often my scorched soul,_  
_she will fly away;  
_ _she too, cruel boy, has wings._

_(Meleager, Anth. Gr. 5.57 Transl. by W. R. Patton, 1916)_

  
  


Frightening… is my desire. It annihilates everything along its path. All the artful designs and the careful plans. Of those I had many. I have been weaving them with so much zeal; so much care. Playing the demented games of a conniving old man, whose protection proved as fickle as his trust. It is not that I did not expect it to be so. Still, there were brief moments when I convinced myself that he might be sincere.

 

Fateful… is my desire. It leads me back to the beginning. Places I had left forever behind. People I made sure I had forgotten. The stinking den where Saracen resides. His filthy realm of killers and thieves. His lecherous voice bargaining; demanding my return. “You must be desperate to come to me,” he gloats. Am I truly desperate, I wonder?

 

This desire is all I have. This desire is mine alone. It has shaped my life since the day he hanged me, my beloved; my executioner. Since I watched him ride away in the morning mist and during all the gray days that followed. Days that cured any illusion of love. Then I discovered my locket around his neck. It shook me, I admit it. Could even a feeble spark of that old love survive after all these years? “You still wear my locket,” I observed. “I ask myself why,” he whispered, our lips almost touching, his arms tightly wrapped around my waist, his chest pressing against mine. I knew immediately what I have known all along. There had never been any love. Just the fleeting passions of a daring aristocrat and his thrill for possession. It had dissipated long before he signed my death sentence. The locket around his neck is nothing but his noble guilt. He calls it love perhaps. But I know otherwise.

 

Dreadful… is my desire. Dreadful and deceptive. His death took just one shot. So fast. So simple. In the end it meant nothing at all. Just a promise to myself I had to keep. It was done. He is not dead, of course. He stands behind me, aiming his pistol at my back. Should I be pretend to be unnerved? In truth, I am relieved. It would have been a useless, meaningless death. Had there been any love…perhaps it would have hurt him that I was his executioner, as much as it hurt me, that he has been mine.

 

Sorrowful… is my desire. Sorrowful and strange and sweet. Sword in hand, he demands that I kneel defeated and my heart leaps with joy. For I am free. I have nothing to lose that has not been lost already. Whether he thrusts this sword through my scarred neck or succumbs to his noble guilt and walks away, I am free.


	10. Fatherless

**(Between Season 1 and Season 2)**

 

“Perhaps they are truthful,” he tells himself stepping away from the assembly of doctors all speaking at the same time, all vying for his attention. “Maybe it is just another curable ailment. Armand is stronger than many men his age. He has overcome much worse. A poisoning even.” He takes a deep breath and stands dignified, seemingly not in the least worried.

 

But he is worried. He knows they are dissimulating. The question is how much. “If Armand were here he would have helped me see through their flattery and lies,” he tells himself. Armand despises two kinds of people most of all: incompetent liars and blathering flatterers. Exactly the kind now flocking outside his bedchamber.

 

_What if Armand dies?_

 

He pushes the idea at the back of his mind, but somehow it refuses to remain there.

 

_What if Armand dies?_

 

He cannot allow it. Does the King not have power of life and death above all men? His mere touch is supposed to cure humble mortals. But Armand is not a humble mortal. It makes no sense, that God will not listen to his prayers. A King is God’s representative among his people. A King is blessed by God. His prayers have priority and sway. And a Cardinal is God’s emissary. How can this be happening?

 

“God shall intervene in the end. This is a mere test of faith,” he assures himself.

 

And yet. Was his father not a King? A King who was stabbed in the middle of a busy street by a baseborn fanatic, all in the name of God?  It was unfathomable; still is.

 

He was nine when it happened. He remembers it all clearly. The anticipation of Mother’s coronation the previous day. Her ladies preparing for the ceremony. Mother’s elation. He did not know it then but he knows now that she had waited for this moment for ten bitter years. He had stayed behind. Kept away from the festivities that followed, although he could hear the music and flurry of people even from his room. At first it seemed part of the excitement. Loud footsteps. Men yelling. The doors of his apartments flung open. Musketeers. His Mother’s pale face.

 

“The King is Dead! Long Live the King!”

 

Who were all these people? What was he expected to do? What was he expected to say? He recalls the emptiness and panic he felt as he realized the unthinkable. His Father dead. Impossible. King Henry could not die. Louis remembers how tall he looked, like one of those Greek gods in the paintings. Or maybe he was one: Zeus. How could Zeus die?

 

“Stand up Louis,” Mother’s voice was severe. “Stand up and compose yourself son, you are King now.” His legs trembled; he felt a lump in his throat and tears burning in his eyes. Kings do not weep. Not even for Zeus. Not even for dead fathers.

 

A firm hand had helped him to his feet. A man’s calm steady voice encouraged him. “Here, Your Majesty,” said the man, leading him carefully to the center of the room. He was a Musketeer. He has never forgotten that moment nor the man’s name. Another Armand; de Treville.

 

Now he too stands here, outside the Cardinal’s bedchamber. Older but as steady and loyal as that first day they met. His gaze is fixed on the Cardinal’s door as if he too expects a miracle to happen at any second: the doors flung open, the Cardinal standing at the threshold, a little bend, with his usual cryptic smile. But the doors remain closed.

 

_What if Armand dies?_

 

“Your Majesty should perhaps return to the Louvre,” whispers Monsieur de la Porte. It is a delicate position the royal valet finds himself in, urging his King to abandon the deathbed of a friend, of a father, by bringing up the King’s other duty. “Her Majesty should not be left alone in her fragile state.” Presumptuous though they are, the words shake Louis out of his reverie.

 

He thinks of another child. The child he expects to hold soon. The child that will call him father. The child that he promises himself will never have to face a room full of strangers, scared and alone. The child he shall never abandon.

 

He clears his voice. “Messieurs,” he declares, “it is time to withdraw. His Eminence should rest now.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Armand Jean du Plessis: the name of the man known as Cardinal Richelieu


	11. Reflection

**Reflection**

“I embraced my lights  
     and so was their guide;  
          how wondrous a soul  
               illuminating lights!”

**\-----Night----**

“My full moon never waned;  
     my sun, it never set,  
          and all the blazing stars  
               followed my lead.”

 

Such a strange phantom-moon the French moon is… 

My moon was bright, its well-defined outline reflected in the clear waters of the fountain in my father’s garden, framed by orange trees. My moon danced in fragrant waters alongside tender white orange blossoms. It sung to me in the night about the dark deep sea and the lands that lie beyond. “I have seen it” the moon would whisper “the vast African coast…”

I have only imagined it. I’ve always longed to see it. To discover its secrets. 

My secrets.

 

He stirs and groans in pain. The tall Musketeer they dragged here wounded. He bleeds and all I can do is clean the blood with the little water I have been given. I have refused to drink and eat. Balthazar kicked a plate with some bread and cheese spreading everything on the floor “You Moors are animals,” he growled, “eating off the floor is too good for you.”

The Musketeer opens his eyes. He looks confused, his eyes unfocused. He puts his hand on the bolt piercing his thigh. “Don’t touch it, or you will bleed to death,” I warn him.

 

I have seen this kind of wound many times since the Spanish soldiers stormed our towns and villages. I have seen limbs severed and blood flowing in the streets. My father’s orange trees burned. Our fountain dried. We were no longer Spanish. We were no longer human. My father held my hand firmly and said, “Daughter, never forget this moment. Never forget this treachery. Listen to their words no more. You are a Moor like your mother and your father and all your ancestors whose wisdom has built Spain. This is your heritage and your destiny.”

 

My destiny now lies in those lands beyond the sea. Far from Spain with its blood-stained hands. Far from France with its phantom moon. My father and I were almost there. But Balthazar is not a fool and I was careless; I should have known better than to walk to the market in broad daylight.

 

I fear for my father. What he might do. What might be done to him. After all, besides some grains of gunpowder, he has nothing. He knows nothing. How long can he deceive the French before they realize that he does not have the cypher and knows not how to use it? What is the fate of a dark-skinned Moor in France? Probably not better than in Spain…And yet… here is this Musketeer. Perhaps there is some hope for us. For my father. Or perhaps it is wishful thinking. This wounded man is not unlike our brave Moors who once fought for Spain.

 

“What is your name?”

 

“Porthos,” he says. He steadies his voice suppressing a moan. He must be in much pain. He asks me about this place. Particulars. If I know where it is. How many men. Names.

 

Such a strange man, with a strange name. His language is too refined. His voice is too French. Is he a Moor like me? Are there Moors in France?

 

“What’s that book?” he asks politely.

The question catches me by surprise. What kind of man is this Musketeer? He looks like a soldier but sounds nothing like one. Sharp-eyed and attentive even when he is in such pain. Discriminating. Careful. I am surprised he noticed the book. The Spanish soldiers I have known cared little about such things, which is why Balthazar has not discovered that the cypher is in fact, in my hands. And in his. 

 

“Poems by the mystic Umar Ibn al-Farid.” It is not exactly a lie. It is not exactly the truth.

 “Do you read Arabic?” I probe further.

 

“I am not a Moor,” he says quietly.

 

“Where are you from?” I venture, my curiosity now overpowering my sense of subtlety. It was a mistake. He sounds angry.

 

“France” he says.

 

“…and Africa.”

**\---- Dawn----**

“From his light,  
     the niche of my essence enlightened me;  
          by means of me,  
               my nights blazed morning bright.”

 

Break of morning. The weak winter light peeks through a small window in the old attic. 

 

He attempts to stand but cannot. The bolt has pierced his thigh. Perhaps it reaches the bone. He cannot tell.  He makes an effort to touch its protruding edge. Stabbing pain. He breathes deeply and closes his eyes, “I must remove it,” he thinks. “It can be used as a weapon.” The pain returns in waves.

 

“If you remove it, you will bleed to death,” she says in her solemn voice. “Do you think there is much use for one-legged Musketeers?”

 

She is correct in this. As she was correct in many other things. And certain. So certain. “I am a Moor.” She spoke quietly, in her melodious, inflected voice. “I am going to Morocco. I am going home.”  As if she would simply stand up and walk out of this attic, in her steady proud stride. 

He is not certain of much. He knows they cannot escape without a weapon. The only certainty now is the throbbing pain in his leg that radiates to his entire body. He cannot think…

 

 “Where are you from?” she asks in the silence.

The question infuriates him. Or is it the pain and his weakness? No, it is the question. He intuits it often, lurking behind the gazes of the people he meets. Most never dare ask him; he has learned how to silence that question before it is uttered, with a simple look. He knows he can intimidate people.

 

“France,” he can hear the anger in his own voice. But then, shocked, he hears himself add, “…and Africa.” Is it her certainty? Is it her directness? He feels exposed. Naked.

 

“Which part of Africa?” she insists.

 

He is overcome by another wave of pain. There is something else now at the back of it. A pain of another kind. It feels like sobs that have been suppressed for too long. He pushes them back again as he whispers “I do not know.”

 

“Well, whatever part of Africa you are from that is where you belong,” she continues in a matter of fact tone. And all at once, everything becomes clear. Simple. The pain subsides. That other ominous wave of sobs concealed behind it evaporates. He can breathe. For the first time.

 

“Would you like to hear some poetry?” she asks.

 

“I would rather have some brandy.” It is true. In his entire life he has never craved more for some.

 

“Poetry is all I have,” she says quietly.

 

She opens her small leather-bound book and reads:

 _“I made me witness my being there_  
_for I was he;_  
_I witnessed him as me,_  
_the light, my splendor.”_

  

\--- **Eventide---**

 “I have something for you,” she says with a smile that illuminates her delicate features. She hands him a small light package. A book. He opens the first page and reads.

 _“I sought her from myself,_  
_she was there all along;_  
_how strange that I_  
_had concealed her from me.”_

 

He pretends to read but finds he cannot. She wears a dark blue silk veil that matches the color of her eyes. He realizes he has never seen eyes that blue nor skin more radiant. He wonders what it feels like, to touch her soft face with his fingers; to taste her warmth and that faint scent of jasmine. He realizes he is staring so he lowers his eyes embarrassed.

“Ah poetry,” is all he can say. He hopes she does not notice that he is blushing, but he knows that she does. There is a playful glimmer in her eyes now. 

“The ship to Morocco leaves tomorrow at noon,” she says and his heart sinks. So soon. So little time. “I am going home. You should seek your home too.”

Is this an invitation or simply friendly and dispassionate advice? Would he follow her on that ship back to Africa? Is that home? Until now he has always pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind alongside the recollection of his mother’s dying kiss. Until now Africa has been only silent tears he had refused to shed. A dark hovel at the Court of Miracles. Older boys calling him names. Africa has been nothing but loss. Africa has been nothing but sadness. Suddenly it is a place of radiant light. The light reflected in her eyes, in the warmth of her voice….Would he dare? Would he follow her? So many questions. So little time. _Tomorrow at noon_ …

A neighing horse stirs him from the reverie. “My home is here,” he says, “you are looking at it.”

“It is where you feel you belong,” she says quietly, and he is struck by the clarity of her words. He knows he must stay. He knows he must seek his roots here.

“Goodbye brother” she says and embraces him. He kisses her fondly on that soft cheek. He knows he will never forget the sweetness of her skin. Such joy! Such sorrow!

 

He watches as she walks through the gate disappearing in the busy street. He opens her book once again to a random page. He reads:

 _“By her, I departed to her_  
_from me, never to return;_  
_one like me never speaks_  
_of coming back.”_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on Season 2, episode 3 "Good Traitor"
> 
> The poem used in this story is the same poem Samara reads to Porthos. "From his light" by the mystic Sufi poet Umar Ibn al-Farid (Egypt, 1181-1235)


End file.
